Unless otherwise indicated herein, approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims listed below and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Data communication in a computer network, or data network, typically involves grouping all transmitted data into suitably sized blocks, herein referred to as “data packets” or “packets” interchangeably, which are transmitted via a medium that may be shared by multiple simultaneous communication sessions. Data packets are generally composed of a header and payload. Information in the header is used by networking hardware to direct the packet to its destination. The payload is extracted and used, e.g., by an application software.
In today's complex networking environment, often times data packets may be transferred between network domains that utilize different formats and protocols. Under conventional approaches, data packets are typically modified in a fixed way, e.g., having the format of data packets transformed or otherwise converted from one format to another. Each of FIG. 7A and FIG. 7B illustrates a conventional approach to data packet modification. Referring to FIG. 7A, an ingress data packet 700 at a first networking apparatus may be modified by having a value copied from a given position or field in the outer header thereof and replicated in the same position or field in the inner header thereof. Referring to FIG. 7B, an ingress data packet 750 at a second networking apparatus, which may be data packet 700 after aforementioned modification, may be modified by having the value of the given position or field in the inner header thereof copied and replicated in the same position or field in the outer header thereof.